Collections of a Troublemaker
by GallonsoftheStuff
Summary: One-shots and drabbles written for Hogwarts Houses Challenges using prompts from the challenges Drabble Club and The Quidditch Pitch. Current: Tea and Sweaters - Gift fic for The Sailor Owls featuring Fred/Hermione, Next Gen, sweaters and tea.
1. Disaster

**A/N: Eh.**

 **Hogwarts Houses Challenges: The Kitchen Challenge**

 **Prompt (The Quidditch Pitch): spell - aguamenti**

 **Prompt (Drabble Club): sentence - Falling in love was the easiest thing she had ever done.**

 **Disclaimer: Yeah, yeah, I don't own jack. Enjoy!**

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To Molly Weasley being named after her grandmother was something of a curse. She had the temper – that she had gotten in _spades_ – as well as all those protective, motherly instincts, and, of course, the red hair. But what she did not have, much to her chagrin and the amusement of several of her family members, was her grandmother's mastery of all things domestic.

Certainly, she could perform any number of household charms, but they were, at best, competent, while at worst… well, to call those particular times "disastrous" would not be overstating things.

At thirteen, after spending a happy weekend with her namesake, Molly ventured into the kitchen for her first unsupervised baking session. She gathered all the ingredients to make simple breakfast biscuits – flour, salt, milk, a bit of shortening and baking powder – and set to work. The initial process went well – mixing was easy, as was rolling out her dough and cutting it into neat circles to place on the pan. It was when she put the tray into the oven and tried the quick-heating spell she had seen her grandmother use to cook _her_ biscuits that things went south.

The kitchen was saved only due to the intervention of her mother – who, upon smelling the smoke, had dashed down the stairs and shouted a breathless " _Aguamenti!_ " at the flames. The oven though – that was thoroughly ruined, not to mention the biscuits. Molly's attempted baking was not appreciated and she was banned from any further experimentation without the direct supervision of someone who knew what they were doing.

Similar incidents were not uncommon, even under the watchful eye of a parent and/or grandparent. When trying to wash a dirty set of Quidditch robes, she managed to turn the entire load a vivid red – the sight of which caused her mother to faint. Working in the garden, she pulled up weeds and useful plants alike, unable to tell them apart. Three other attempts to cook ended in fire, burnt casserole, and a gelatinous goo that stank so badly it took a week to get the smell out – no one could figure out where she had gone wrong with that last one and she had finally thrown in the towel.

It seemed that Molly Weasley the Second would never live up to the household magic of her grandmother. She had, in fact, resigned herself to forever failing at those skills – a running joke developed among her family that the only way Molly would have a wardrobe not dyed random colors, good home-cooking, and a garden that did not resemble a jungle or a dirt patch was if she married a man who was some sort of domestic god.

Six years after leaving home, she met her man – a Muggle named Sebastian – when he moved into the flat across the hall from her. A single whiff of his chicken cacciatore was enough to assure her of his cooking skills – three months of dating was enough to convince her to move in with him, and at six months, it was all she could do not to squeeze the life out of him when he proposed, she was so happy. Falling in love was the easiest thing she had ever done.

At the wedding, she tolerated the jokes her cousins made about her lack of 'womanly' skill with a smile on her face – what woman needed to be a good cook when her husband was a professional chef?

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 **A/N: Anyone want to share their thoughts? Nope? Carry on.**


	2. A Day in the (Forum) Life

**A/N: Hogwarts Houses Challenges - The Quidditch Pitch, Drabble Club, and The Diary Challenge**

 **Prompt (The Quidditch Pitch): Spell - silencio**

 **Prompt (Drabble Club): Word - singing**

 **Prompt (The Diary Challenge): Recall a moment during the time you've been on the forum, and make a little diary entry about it, as if it really happened.**

 **(So yep, a funny little segment from over on the Hogwarts Houses Challenges forum. Hope everyone enjoys this version of the wakadoodle events.)**

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There once was a Gryffindor named Red. Fair of skin, with hair to match her name and eyes of green, this witch is the epitome of Godric's house; brave and good and true.

On any random afternoon, Red can be seen visiting her friend Gally the Hufflepuff, plotting mischief for the entire school. (Or vice versa, Gally may be seen visiting Red, though they prefer the Hufflepuff common room for its comfort and coziness.)

On one particular afternoon, during one such visit to the Hufflepuff common room, the discussion has wandered to the secret nature of many Hufflepuffs. (I.e., their tendencies to be secret mass murderers is being tossed around jokingly, as is commentary on a Muggle knife that toasts bread as it cuts.) One Hufflepuff, a wizard by the name of Eric, cuts in with "Excuse me, I'm not a secret mass murderer!"

Red smiles, dubbing Eric her favorite Puff after Gally.

Gally laughs and says, "Eric is a true Puff, good and simple and true! We salute you, Eric of Hufflepuff!"

Then pounces on and hugs Red because she is still her favorite Puff. Red returns the embrace and calls to another Hufflepuff, E. Red, saying "Remember when we talked about men? I'd take an Eric over a Shane any day." As an aside, in case the nightmarish Slytherin is around, she adds "No offense Shane. Don't kill me."

E. Red, taking the first comment literally, murmurs "Eric/Red. Can I draw you guys fan art," then exclaims "OMG I should totally draw couple art for all you guys!"

Red laughs. "I can get down with that," she says in response to E. Red's shipping implications, and calls, "Hey Eric, you free tonight? I heard Hogsmeade is very pretty in the moonlight."

Skeptical, the Hufflepuff replies, "Getting to Hogsmeade is hard."

"Not if you're with me," Red says with a wink. "I know all the secret tunnels."

"Secret tunnels sound like great fun." In a musing tone, he adds, "You know it makes me wonder how secure Hogwarts actually is with all the secret passageways, even those that go in and out of Hogwarts."

Red latches onto the first statement, grinning. "So does that mean you'll go out with me?"

Eric, after little thought, replies, "Sure."

"YES!" the Gryffindor says, punching the air and giving the object of her affection a quick hug. Triumphant, she turns to Gally and says, "See? That's how it's done."

Gally, amused and willing to play along, replies "Yes, if I wanted to ask Shane out, that would be the way to do it." Under her breath she adds, "Except he'd probably stab me, not say sure."

Red laughs and replies, "Most likely. He might say yes and have a one night stand with you, though. And isn't that what you want?" She adds in a hopelessly sappy voice, obviously teasing, "And you might change him!"

Gally cannot help but laugh at the last, utterly ridiculous statement, huffing out, "Like I want to try to do that," when she can breath again.

The conversation moves on to other pairings.

Chaos erupts when three anonymous pranksters hit the school, one vandalizing the private quarters of Shane, another entering every room in the school to spray paint the walls, and the last, most annoying, desecrates the school library. Many students join in the punishment of the prankster for this heinous act.

(Between the first and second pranksters, the Slytherin Amy also vandalizes the school, but her actions are forgiven, even if they create worry that Shane will attack Gally for the difficult to remove tag of "Shane/Gally ftw", even if she had nothing to do with it (other than Amy stealing her permanent spelled paint formula). This worry turns to jokes about the nonexistent couple, and the nursery rhyme "Sitting in a tree" is sung by Red and Lexi. Despite Gally jinxing them to honk like geese, neither even feigns regret for their teasing.)

The next day, Red joins the Hufflepuffs as she usually does and the conversation goes from Lily and Owls' random shipping of Red and Gally (who are just friends and partners-in-crime) to homework when Eric enters the common room. Remembering that the two were supposed to have gone on a date the night before, Gally excitedly asks how it went, encouraging the couple to sit together (so she can more easily draw floating hearts around them).

"The date was lovely," Red replies with a smile, getting all starry-eyed as she recalls the night. "I showed him a few secret tunnels, and he whined, but I dragged him to Hogsmeade and he made me feel all better after all that stress with the stupid trolls."

Looking at her friend, Gally declares, "I don't care what anyone else says, that's evidence right there that Reric," as the couple was dubbed, "is the best ship."

Headmistress Claire, perhaps deciding to embarrass the Gryffindor after all her pranks, joins in with, "Oi, oi?! I hope you remembered protection!" She winks and laughs uproariously while Red blushes.

"Claire! You're supposed to be a teacher, don't insinuate such things!" Red protests, then mutters, "Plus who the hell shags on the first date."

The Headmistress laughs an evil laugh. "I love it when I make people blush!" She guffaws some more before responding to Red's muttered comment with a wink. "Well, some do..."

Red blushes even harder, if possible. "I only meant to say he was very sweet and made me forget about it! With words! Not with... GAH!" She hides behind a book.

Continuing to tease, Claire says, "If you're blushing this much, something must have happened!"

"No no no nothing happened! I just... he was... and you made me think about... Gah, stop!" Those close enough to Red can literally feel her face emitting heat. "Can we not talk about this anymore?"

Gally teases, "Aw, Red, I'm your best friend! You're supposed to tell me everything!"

Claire cannot respond for laughing.

"Nothing happened, just pleasant conversation and Red was nice," Eric chimes in, appearing as cool as a cucumber. "Secret Tunnels are slightly less nice."

E. Red laughs, commenting from the side with extreme accuracy, "I love how Eric's as cool as a cucumber through all this, while Red's blushing."

"They are a balanced couple," Gally replies.

Responding to Eric, Red says, "Forbidden Forest for next time it is!" Then, to E. Red and Gally, "Eric is always cool..." her eyes grow wide as she looks at them. "... Did I say that out loud?"

Trish, another Gryffindor, chimes in with a smile. "You guys are adorable."

"They really, really are," Gally says, drawing hearts with her wand and pushing them toward the couple. Trish joins her, drawing smaller hearts to match Gally's.

"That ship name though," the Gryffindor adds with a giggle.

"Red, I don't want to know! You know if I catch you out of bounds, it'll be another detention. That goes for Eric too (I'm sure you don't want to be leading your _boyfriend_ into trouble this soon...)" Headmistress Claire scolds, having heard the Forbidden Forest comment.

"It was that or Ered, and Red liked Reric better," Gally tells Trish, drawing arrows to go with the hearts, reminiscent of Cupid.

Red swats at the hearts, grumbling "Quit it!"

Gally laughs. "You two are cute though!"

Then the Nightmare Prince walks in. "Why is the the Puff room being occupied tonight? Is it because there's less opportunity for murder in here?"

He turns Gally into a scone, "Just to let her know I'm here." Then he conjures a swarm of red heart-shaped balloons and charms them to follow "the lovestruck" Red around.

Before Gally even realizes she's been turned into a scone, Red changes her back and pouts at all the hearts around her.

Shane charms balloons to serenade her with Celine Dion ballads and begins to sing himself. "Eric and Red, sitting in a Tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. First comes love. Then comes marriage. Then comes a nightmare in a golden carriage."

Gally, realizing what was done to her, shouts, "WHY IS HE ALWAYS TURNING ME INTO FOOD? Why can't he turn me into a mammal or a reptile or a bird so I can at least move around..." She irritably throws flower petals at Shane in the hopes that he doesn't like them, since she doesn't think she can get away with hexes with the Headmistress hanging around.

Fed up, Red casts _Silencio_ on the Nightmare Prince. "Can you knock it off with the cutesy romantic crap!?"

Gally needn't have worried about the Headmistress though, because Claire is laughing at her. "Maybe he wants to eat you..." she says, cracking up.

There is only one way the Hufflepuff can interpret the woman's tone, and she murmurs, "Headmistress Claire has a dirty, dirty mind." Feeling guilty at her friend's frustration over the 'cutesy romantic crap', she also banishes her heart drawings. "Sorry Red!"

Claire continues to laugh. "Hey, you implied it! I meant as a sweet foodstuff!"

Shane, unable to speak, resorts to carving messages into the faces of poor little first years. Too late for the first years, Red lifts her spell and Claire, noticing the unfortunate students, shouts at Shane, assigning the impertinent Slytherin detention.

As he wanders off to complete his punishment, the Hufflepuff common room settles once again into calm camaraderie.

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 **A/N: Thanks to Redbutterfly33 for giving me the idea, and xxCallMeAmyxx for requesting something for her birthday featuring our "forum pairings". So here's your gift Amy!**


	3. Revelations

**A/N: Hogwarts Houses Challenges - Quidditch Pitch and Drabble Club.**

 **Prompt (Quidditch Pitch): word - exsanguination.**

 **Prompt (Drabble Club): creature - vampire**

 **Words: approximately 1,220**

 **Disclaimer: For the last time, I don't own Harry Potter! *pouts* I don't even own Akeldama - that character belongs to my sister (and isn't a vampire originally - just a ten thousand year old immortal bonded to a phoenix. Actually, she's much more awesome as my sister writes her).**

 **Anyway, enjoy the fic!**

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" _Exsanguination_ ," Sebastian said, his voice incredulous. "Honestly, what kind of word is _exsanguination_? There's no way to work that into a normal conversation. I mean, how would you even use that in a sentence?"

Molly, sitting on the other end of the couch, looked up from her reading to frown at her boyfriend. "The ultimate cause of death in a vampire attack is exsanguination," she said, inexactly quoting a line from one of her old Defense against the Dark Arts textbooks.

Sebastian blinked at her, muttering "Huh," before he wrote something on his tablet computer and flicked the screen to some effect.

Setting aside her book – a gift from her father – she scooted across the couch to try to get a look at what the Muggle was doing, settling into his side as he shifted to accommodate her. "What brought that on?" Her eyes skimmed the computerized page, but she couldn't make heads or tails of the graphics, still too unfamiliar with Muggle technology to understand it.

"Game with Dama," he said. "She keeps winning using weird words." He shook his head. "I know where she gets them, but it's like she's cheating." Looking back at her, he narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "Where did you learn it? I know you don't read fantasy novels, so how'd you come up with a sentence like that?"

Molly shifted, uncomfortable – Sebastian didn't know she was a witch, not yet. She would readily admit that she loved the Muggle and she knew he loved her, but she wasn't sure she _could_ tell him. Almost six months of dating, three of living together, and she _wanted_ to tell him. She really, really did. But she wasn't sure yet, how he would take it.

"I read it in a book for school," she eventually answered – the truth was always better than a lie, even if it wasn't the whole truth.

"What book? _Dracula_?" Sebastian asked, but the way he snorted a laugh and turned his eyes back to his tablet told her it was more of a rhetorical question. So she hummed, a noncommittal sound, and let her gaze settle, unfocused, on the screen as her thoughts wandered.

How did one go about telling their Muggle boyfriend about the magical world? About the heritage that came with flying on broomsticks, casting spells, using magic wands and brewing potions in cauldrons? She wasn't sure anyone in her family had even dated a Muggle, aside from her – certainly, none that she could think of had married one. Muggleborns and half-bloods aplenty, but not one full-blooded Muggle. Maybe she could look for a book on the subject the next time she was in Diagon Alley…

Without her really noticing, Sebastian had finished his game (or given up on it) and set aside the tablet, turning his attention to her.

"Molly," he said; the smile on his face said it wasn't the first time he had said her name. "Earth to Molly, come in Molly. Where did you go?"

Though the words were teasing and the look in his eye was merely curious, Molly felt her face flush almost guiltily. "Nowhere," she replied. Another uncomfortable shift, then she flashed a smile at him, opening her mouth to suggest… something, anything, to get them out of the apartment and take her mind off trying to tell him she was a witch. Only, she didn't have to, because just as her brain stalled on ideas, someone knocked on the door. _Banged_ actually might have been a more appropriate word choice.

"Who could that be?" she said, her frown deepening when her boyfriend groaned.

"I think I know," Sebastian answered, sounding resigned and… sheepish? Molly put down her hand on the cushion to keep from falling over as he stood and went to the door. Curious, she peered down around the dividing wall to see who it was.

She barely heard the Muggle greet the woman with blood red hair – Molly was too busy taking in the pale skin and the flash of fangs in the vampire's mouth to notice the familiarity of her boyfriend's tone.

Moving faster than she ever had, the witch snatched her wand from her sleeve and pointed it at the creature, casting a knock-back jinx in one breath and a binding spell with the next. The vampire flew out into the hallway, somehow landing on its feet and dodging the ropes; Molly was already scrambling to put herself between Sebastian and the petite, youthful-looking woman, another spell on the tip of her tongue.

One she never wound up speaking – instead of attacking, the other redhead took one look at her, straightened out of her defensive crouch, and turned her eyes to the Muggle behind the protective witch.

"Bas, I can't believe you didn't tell me you were dating a witch!"

Molly gaped, confusion warring with surprise and the sudden sick realization that she had just used magic in front of Sebastian. Surprise won out over the other emotions when her boyfriend spoke up.

"I was waiting for her to actually tell me before I told you." The witch whipped around to stare at Sebastian, but he was still looking at the vampire in the hallway. "Couldn't you have just called before coming by, Dama? I think you almost gave Molly a heart attack."

Said witch made a strangled noise, unable to figure out which part of that reply was more shocking: the fact that her boyfriend's best friend was apparently a vampire (which sort of explained why she had yet to meet the woman – the summer days made visiting hours kind of short for their kind), or that he had _known_ she was a witch.

His gaze shifted to her, brow furrowed. "Are you okay?"

They both ignored the vampire's indignant, "Hey, I'm the one that got hit with a _Flipendo_!"

"How… how long have you known?" She had been agonizing over hiding magic from him for months!

"Um." Sebastian looked away, raising a hand to scrub his fingers through his hair and his eyes getting that squinty look like he always did when he was thinking. "Since you moved in? Your wand fell out of your pocket when you fell asleep on the couch the first day – I already suspected, but that cinched it."

That didn't make sense – she'd always been careful to hide any sign that she was a witch. How could he have suspected? And he was a Muggle – he should have thought her wand was just a stick! "But… how did you even…"

"Know what it was? I grew up with a half-vampire." A crooked smile accompanied his gesture toward their unexpected visitor. "I may be a Muggle, but I've known about the magical world since I was a kid."

"Oh." That… actually sort of made sense, at the same time it spawned about six dozen other questions.

Sebastian grinned again, not giving her time to ask any of them before he turned her around and introduced her to the (half?) vampire. "Molly, this is Akeldama, who's practically my second mom. Dama, this is Molly Weasley, my girlfriend."

Somehow, the witch summoned a smile, despite the fact that she was still reeling. Akeldama (she would have to look that name up – vampires liked names that reflected what they were) didn't return it, gaping at Molly instead.

"You're dating a _Weasley_?"

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 **Vampires like blood, headcanon of Molly II likes chicken, Sebastian likes tacos, and I like reviews! Nom nom nom.**


	4. Bachelor Party

**A/N: Hogwarts Houses Challenges - Camp Hogwarts Challenge, The Quidditch Pitch, and The Drabble Club.**

 **Prompt (Camp Hogwarts Challenge): Paintball - write about an ambush.**

 **Prompt (The Quidditch Pitch): Spell - _stupefy_.**

 **Prompt (The Drabble Club): Dialogue - "No, please, please don't kill me. Please, I'll do anything."**

 **Words: approximately 1,150**

 **More of the OC, Sebastian, and Next-Gen Weasleys (and Potters)! Let's just get straight to it, shall we?**

 **Disclaimer: Alas, I own nothing.**

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They came at them from behind, grabbing Molly first – she yelled as her hand was ripped from his. Sebastian tried to whip around, to see their faces, but they yanked a bag down over his face and all he saw was blackness, the cloth smelling of burlap. One of them – maybe more than one – wrapped their fingers around his wrists, trying to pin them behind his back and get a rope around them. Whoever it was got an elbow to the face as the young man fought against the hold.

"Shit!" cursed his attacker in a distorted voice, and Sebastian pictured hands holding a broken nose – despite the muffling, it was definitely a male voice.

He ducked out of the other man's grasp, reaching up to remove the hood. Before his fingers could close on the fabric, another voice hissed, "Move! _Stupefy_!" and the Muggle dropped, unconscious before he hit the ground.

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The first thought Sebastian had when he woke up – a sudden, rather than a gradual thing – was that he'd been kidnapped by fucking _wizards_. Of all people!

The second thought was a catalogue of facts – one, he was tied to a chair. Two, whichever of his captors had tied him up did a shit job of it. Three, the hood was gone.

"Hey. Hey! I think he's awake."

And number four: he was pretty sure these were Molly's cousins. Why, exactly, did he think that these were members of his future-wife's family? A few different things, the main one being that he was not, uncomfortable as he was, severely _hurt_. If these wizards were enemies of Akeldama (unlikely, because the half-vampire did not have _wizard_ enemies; at least, not the kind that would want to kidnap _him_ ), he doubted he would have been allowed to regain consciousness on his own, and the first thing on his mind would have likely been _pain,_ rather than a general sense of irritation.

So he felt it was reasonable to assume that the wizards who had taken him were Weasleys.

Which, since they weren't the kind of family to subscribe to the bullshit about 'blood purity' (another thought to support his conclusion: if these _weren't_ the Weasleys, but some faction of wizards who wanted to break up a marriage between a Muggle and a pureblood witch, he might not have woken up at all), meant that this was probably some misguided attempt at a hazing ritual leading up to a bachelor party. The kidnapping had to be someone's idea of a joke to mess with him and Molly.

There was a click followed by the hum of electricity and Sebastian couldn't help the slight flinch as a floodlight (he thought – he couldn't exactly _see_ ) turned on right in front of him. Odd of wizards not to use magic, but maybe one of them was a fan of old crime movies and liked the effect. He hadn't met many of the Weasleys yet – just Molly's parents, her sister Lucy, and her cousin Victoire, who had been with her husband Teddy.

Whichever these three (he thought there might have been four, maybe five, but he'd only heard three voices), they obviously wanted to mess with him. _Well_ , he thought, glad the position of his head hid his there-and-gone smile, _let's see how they like being messed with_.

Groaning (which he didn't need to fake – he was definitely going to have bruises in the morning), Sebastian turned his face further from the light, putting on a show.

"Wha–?" he murmured, turning his head back the other way with his eyes barely open to try to get a look at who was beyond the light. Unfortunately, he couldn't make out more than shadowy figures – five, like he thought, but if he could just get a glimpse of the hair… Akeldama had told him the Weasleys were famous for their red hair. Then again, a lot of Molly's male cousins didn't have that infamous red color, did they?

Eh, it didn't matter – most likely, these were relatives of his fiancé (what other wizards would want to kidnap him?), which meant they weren't going to _actually_ hurt him. That didn't stop him from working loose the binds on his wrists as he played up his confusion.

"Where am I? What – what's going on?" He pretended to tug against the ropes, jerking his head up and peering beyond the light. Now to inject a little fear… "Where's Molly? What did you do to her?" Dama liked to complain he should have been an actor – though that was more a jab at his attraction to dramatic acts for the hell of it than a commentary on his skill.

"I think you should be a little more concerned about yourself," one of the figures – to the left, further from the light and even harder to see – spoke up. To Sebastian's ear, it was obvious that he was trying to sound intimidating, but the Muggle could hear the hint of laughter the wizard tried to hold back.

"What?" Hopefully, he was better at covering his amusement and the one-word question came out full of confusion and fear. "No… No, please, please don't kill me. Please, I'll do anything." A hint of tears – not hard after staring into that flood-light – and an edge of a sob…

"Whoa, wait, no," another of the young men blurted, stepping toward the chair. "We're not gonna kill you."

"Al! Shut up!" hissed the other speaker – was that the same voice that had cursed when Sebastian elbowed him in the face? Maybe. Didn't particularly matter though – 'Al' was almost close enough. "You're ruining it!" Was it just him, or did that exclamation sound a little whiney?

"No, James, I think–" whatever Al thought, he didn't get to finish. As soon as he was in range, Sebastian surged up from the chair, grabbed the other man, and wrapped the rope around his neck. He held him like a human shield, keeping his head down behind the wizard's – easy enough, since they were practically the same height.

"You guys are _terrible_ at kidnapping," he said, his voice cheery and loud in the stunned silence from Molly's cousins. "Honestly. And even _worse_ at tying a guy up." He gave them just a half second longer to process what had happened before letting Al go and dropping the rope, holding his hands up in surrender just in case his actions and comments had managed to piss one of them off. "Good thing this is a joke."

The silence lasted a couple seconds longer before the tallest figure laughed, reaching out to shut off the flood light and stepping toward him – nope, definitely not a redhead, though his grin reminded Sebastian of Molly at her most mischievous. "I think you're going to fit in just fine with this family," the dark-skinned wizard said.

The Muggle grinned back. "That's always a bonus."

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 **A/N: ...I forgot.**


	5. Tea and Sweaters

**A/N: For The Sailor Owls, a Secret Santa gift fic to make up for her Secret Santa not writing hers.**

 **Prompt (Secret Santa): Fred/Hermione, Next Gen, sweaters (tea…)**

 **Prompt (Quidditch Pitch): Word - purple**

 **Prompt (Drabble Club): Item - cup**

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oOo

"The sweaters are… interesting this year."

Hermione pulled the purple cloth of her new adornment out from her chest, looking down at the dancing letter H with a fond smile – it was hideous, but the love in the yearly gift could not be denied. "Your mum seems to be getting more… creative every year."

"It's all the practice," said Fred, mimicking her actions to look down at his own homemade sweater; the F flashed with different colors sporadically, lighting up dizzyingly if one looked too long. Thankfully, standing shoulder to shoulder with him, his sweater was mostly out of her line of sight. "And, I suspect, too much time on her hands."

"Empty nest syndrome?"

"Precisely."

Lifting her cup – the tea steaming with delicious heat still – Hermione couldn't resist murmuring where no clever eyes could see and the only ears to hear were those of the man standing beside her, "I can hardly _wait_ for mine to start Hogwarts."

Fred chuckled, not bothering to hide his words. "Why Hermione Granger-Weasley," he chided, his voice full of laughter, "one would think you _wanted_ your children gone."

Hermione rolled her eyes up at her companion and hid a smile behind her drink. "If you had any, you would be glad to see them off for even a few months at a time as well."

Across the room, her youngest grabbed his sister's hair, his hands sticky with sap from the Christmas tree Ginny had just pulled him away from. Rose shrieked, but before Hermione could push away from the wall and separate her children, Angelina was there, snatching up Rose while George grabbed Hugo. The toddler was deposited in the play pen with his youngest cousins, while his sister was repositioned to play with the kids more her age. Hermione relaxed, glad to be surrounded by the family that had been hers for years now.

"If you'd just say yes, then those two little monsters would be mine too. We could tag team 'em most of the time, and if you play your cards right, you _might_ even get a Mommy-mini-vacation weekend every once in a while." He had the nerve to waggle his eyebrows at her – she had to force herself not to smile.

"And let you corrupt them even more than you already have?" Hermione asked, injecting incredulity into her voice. "No thank you."

"You'd love having me around all the time," Fred cajoled. "Admit it. You miss me when I'm not there."

"Only as much as I miss –" Hermione cut herself off, her quick wit failing her. She really _did_ miss him when he wasn't there. It wasn't the ache that she had to live with every day, missing Ron, the one that would never go away no matter what she did. The way she missed Fred was something easily rectified, if she would quit dragging her feet.

"Yes," she finally said.

The smile on Fred's face, his mouth just slightly open on a snappy retort, dropped, her response leaving him blinking in surprise. He turned, facing her fully with an expression of uncharacteristic seriousness on his face.

"Do you mean that?"

Hermione's heart thumped once, a brief flutter of butterfly wings stirring in her belly, before she smiled. "I do."

Delight spread across his face just before he whooped and swept her up into his arms, her feet leaving the ground as he spun her around. "She said yes!" Fred crowed, the whole room turning to look at them with first confusion and then happy smiles as they comprehended what was going on.

"'Bout time," George quipped, grinning. Good-natured agreement came from all quarters as laughter bubbled up in Hermione's throat, ruining the effect of her attempts to tell Fred to put her down. The redheaded wizard refused, but she didn't actually mind.

She hadn't thought she would fall for anyone after Ron. Yet here she was, saying yes to Fred, loving him as much as she had ever loved his brother. Her life was better with him as a major part of it.

oOo

* * *

 **A/N: I'm somewhat displeased that this is practically drabble-length, but it does what I wanted it to and adding more just seems unnecessary (and a bit like it would destroy the tone). Hope you enjoy, Owls!**

 **(In case the implication didn't come through, Ron died. That is all. Have a nice day!)**


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